Influence of Molecular Degrees of Freedom on the Gas Damping Behavior of Micro-Oscillators in the Molecular Flow Regime

This paper investigates the pressure dependent damping behavior of micro-oscillators in the molecular flow regime for noble and polyatomic gases. In addition, a plate was positioned in the vicinity of the oscillator with an adjustable gap width, ranging from 150 - 3500 μm. As a novelty, it can be shown from these results that rotational and vibrational molecular degrees of freedom of polyatomic gases play an important role in damping and that their temporal evolution and the collision numbers can be determined experimentally with μs resolution. A new model for describing these effects was developed.